


Rogue Ritual

by oldfashionednotion



Category: Oxventure (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23809180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldfashionednotion/pseuds/oldfashionednotion
Summary: Corazón - broke, drunk, messing with a iffy looking sack of trinkets. What could possibly go wrong?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Rogue Ritual

A sack of loot thudded wetly onto the deck of the Joyful Damnation, quickly followed by a soaked pirate with all the grace of a boneless halibut.

Flopping onto his back, Corazón drew a much-needed lungful of air before dignity got the better of him and he dragged himself to his feet, stumbling to the railing. He leaned out precariously, hollering at the distant lights of the town. 

“Yeah, that’s right idiots! Told you, you’d never catch me! Told you it was pointless! No one’s as fast as Corazón De Ba-.”

He froze, every inch of him clenching as he suddenly felt… something. Something not right. Something wriggling inside his trouser leg.

Oh my god. Oh god, oh god…It’s an eel. No, it’s a shark. Oh god, it’s an eel shark!

He was going to die, he decided in a panic, hopping around on one foot and yanking at his boot. He was going to be devoured by an eel shark from his legs upwards. Or worse, he was going to be rendered a eunuch by an eel shark and no sexy rogue pirates were eunuchs. He’d have to become one of those drunks in bars that took coin to tell you about their missing parts and…

He threw the boot aside and a small fish flopped out.

Oh.

Flicking it off the deck with his foot, he picked up the loot and staggered off to his cabin.

Inside, he dropped the sack on the floor and immediately began rifling through the contents. This’d been a spur of the moment thing. A few bad card games in the tavern and he’d been on the lookout for an opportunity; there was no way he was going back to the ship poorer than when he’d left after all. He almost had a reputation to defend. When he’d spotted the sack, guarded by three nervous looking men…well, he knew it had to have something worthwhile in it. They’d definitely chased him like it did.

Except, he frowned, as he started to pull the contents out, it didn’t. What the hell? It was just a load of old junk! 

A handful of metal pointy rods, a few sticks, some charcoal, a couple of books…

Could he swap those with Merilwen for something valuable? She liked books, right? They used to be trees and she was into trees.

He carried on searching.

Some parchment, a few chicken bones (ugh), a handful of what looked suspiciously like moss and…Ah ha! That was more like it!

Hidden at the bottom, wrapped in a tattered red cloth he caught a peek of something shiny. Oh yes, oldest trick in the book; hide the good stuff beneath the junk. That’s what he did every time he showed the rest of the guild their earnings anyway.

He pulled out the item, unwrapping it in anticipation and…

It was a cup. Gold, yes, but scratched and battered looking. Worth maybe its small weight in coins if he could get it melted down.

Was that everything? He pawed through the rest of the bag, finding only rough robes and cloth hats. Well, that was hardly worth it, was it? Definitely not worth having to steal one of the ‘Love Boats’ to get away and having the town guards laugh at him as he rowed off in the bright pink, rose laden, teddy bear decorated monstrosity. Definitely not worth the mad swim back when it’d sprung a leak a hundred yards out from the ship. Damn tourist pile of junk…

Sitting down heavily in his chair he reached for the nearest bottle of rum. Now what? He still had that bar tab to pay off and he was way too infamous to get away with it. Maybe he shouldn’t have handed out quite so many of those ‘Tales of Corazón’ pamphlets. They were making it hard to stay incognito. 

“And what are you looking at?” he grumbled, catching a glimpse of the skull of M Channail, sitting on his desk, starring at him blankly. 

A few times he’d considered selling the skull to weirdoes, medics or Prudence, but he’d weighed up the likely reward verses how much cooler he look with the skull of his vanquished enemy on his desk, and the latter always came out on top.

“Like you never stole a bag of junk,” he rallied at the distinctly smug looking goblin. “At least I’m not dead. At least I don’t have two failed businesses behind me and I’m not dead because I couldn’t even survive a little dragon fire. At least I didn’t get grappled by someone even though I’m supposed to have powerful magic. I bet you could’ve been five times my size and I still would’ve grappled you!”

Now there was an idea…

*****

“Help us brave Corazón! Only you are skilled and cool enough to save us now!”

“Stand aside, feeble peasants of stick town! I’ve got a bone to pick with this guy.”

Oh, that was good. Corazón picked up his quill and wrote that one down for the next pamphlet, pausing to take another swig out of the rum bottle – completely forgetting that he’d poured some into the useless gold cup a while back – before plonking the latest Corazon action figure dramatically down on the table. Dashingly, he stood in front of the amassed sticks/peasants, pausing to mourn the sight of the decimated metal rod army. So brave, but so foolish. They should’ve known better; only a true hero could deal with this menace.

“You again!” Corazón said, perfectly imitating Channail’s stupid voice, clacking the jaw of the skull up and down as it ‘spoke’. “This time I won’t be so easy to defeat. This time I will destroy you!”

“Yes, it is I, Corazón.” He moved the action figure’s arms to a bold pose, fists on his hips. “And it is I who will destroy you. Again!”

Hmm…dialogue needed a little work there. Still, the plot was coming together nicely. Clearly set to be his best-selling tale yet.

“Foolish man! I’m a giant skeleton head now! You can’t grapple me this time!”

“Why would I need to grapple you when I have the rapier skills of a master swordsman and the cutting wit of a poet who writes scathing social commentary?”

He clipped the tiny sword into tiny Corazón’s hand and moved him into an en garde position. 

“Now face me!”

“Yay!” cried the citizens of stick town. “Go Corazón! You’re so dashing and handsome! All the women will fall at your feet. But you can’t be tied down because you’re free and wild, like the sea. So we’ll give you all our money and-“

Wait, was that footsteps outside?

With an uncoordinated lunge, Corazón swept the dramatic scene from the table, everything clattering the floor. The metal, the sticks, the action figure, the skull, the full cup of-

Oops.

On instinct he grabbed for it but missed by a drunken mile and it tumbled down too, contents spilling out.

Splashing on the skull.

A small concussive blast knocked Corazón off his chair, a rush of thick green smoke rising unnaturally fast from the skull and forming a ball that hung in mid-air. A ball that cackled and spoke with a disembodied voice.

“I told you, you hadn’t seen the last of me!”

Oh shi-

The cabin door burst opened and Prudence strode in. Which might have been more intimidating if she wasn’t bleary eyed and dressed in pyjamas with little Cthulhu’s embroidered on them.

“What was that? I was heading to the bathroom and…Was that something evil? I’m sure I caught a whiff of something evil.”

Corazón glanced up to where the smoke had been.

Gone. Not even a wisp.

“Er….no…nothing…It was definitely nothing. I drank some bad wine.”

A mixture of disappointment and disgust wrinkled her features.

“Well, I’m sure Dob can give you something for that before the rest of us have to suffer. We only have one bathroom on this heap, remember?”

She huffed off, slamming the door shut and leaving him on the floor. 

After a moment, Corazón cautiously reached for the now empty cup, picking it up to inspect it closer. It still looked like junk but…were those runes etched inside? And come to think of it all the stuff in that sack had seemed a bit…magicy in hindsight.

“I’m sure it’s gonna be just fine…” he insisted to the empty room.

But just in case…

He picked up Channail’s thankfully still lifeless skull, holding it at arm’s length and keeping the jaw firmly clamped shut as he took it to the nearest window and tossed it out. It landed with a plop, disappearing quickly into the dark water. As he closed the window securely, Corazón decided that it definitely hadn’t glowed green as it sank, and he definitely didn’t hear a faint cackle heading off into the distance.

Nope. Everything was just fine.


End file.
